2025

Gomukh, India

Land art performance

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"May our souls be bound in the bundle of life"...
 

“Mother of Souls" is a mala of 108 beads and one guru bead, each made from Himalayan pine needles and traditional temple-blessed thread. Inside every bead I placed a handwritten note. On one side is a single negative human trait, and on the other the words “pure love.” The guru bead carries the word “fear,” which gathers all the heavier traits that come before it.
I made the beads in Gangotri and blessed each one with a line from Psalm 51, in Hebrew: Lev tahor bara li Elohim, “Create in me a pure heart, O God.” Then I carried the mala up to Gomukh, the glacial source of the Ganga, at 4,100 meters. Under the full moon I held a simple ceremony and offered it to the river.
The number 108 is sacred in many traditions, and is linked to the nadis, the energy channels of the body that meet in the heart. For me each bead is a passage from density to clarity, from karma to love. The work closes a journey through India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It is a personal release that I offer outward, letting go of my own karma and of the collective energies of our time. As the river carries the mala, it carries every intention written inside it.

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Photography: John Rundle